Electronic devices can generally include at least one substrate with another substrate and/or electrical components adhered thereto. Fabrication of substrates can involve applying an adhesive to a surface of a substrate and using the applied adhesive to adhere another substrate and/or electrical component to the substrate surface. Liquid adhesive is sometimes preferred because of its flowability and compliance, which allows the adhesive to easily cover many different substrate configurations. However, liquid adhesive's flowability can also be problematic because of the difficulty in controlling its boundary as it spreads between two substrates under pressure. Any overflow or underfill of the liquid adhesive during fabrication could cause certain defects in the final product. For example, if the adhesive overflows a designated boundary, it could interact with other layers or components of the device, and produce unintended effects in the device being fabricated. Similarly, if the liquid adhesive underfills a desired area, i.e., if the adhesive fails to reach the intended boundary, it may result in defects such as visible lines in the display area of the device.
Currently, very few boundary control mechanisms exist for controlling the spread of liquid adhesive during manufacturing. One common way to deal with overflow is to simply remove the excess adhesive that has overflowed the intended boundary. However, if the cleaning is not done thoroughly, there could be residue left in the laminate that could affect the quality of the overall device. Sometimes, the laminate can be contaminated if the cleaning is not carried out properly. There may be design constraints or post-lamination processes that prohibit cleaning once the substrates are laminated together. For example, there may not be enough room between the laminated substrates for the cleaning tools to reach the overflowed adhesive. Therefore, it is desirable to have a better mechanism to control the boundary of liquid adhesive to avoid overflow and underfill during fabrication.